Man steals wife’s kidney to cover unpaid dowry

The police have arrested one Biswajit Sarkar after his wife, Rita, reported that he stole one of her kidneys when she had surgery to treat appendicitis two years ago.

Sarkar’s brother was also arrested.

The 28-year-old woman told the police that her husband and his brother removed her kidney when they took her to a private nursing home for surgery after she kept complaining of stomach pain.

She complained that the suspects tricked her to sell one of her kidneys because her family failed to meet their demand for her dowry.

According to Hindus times, she said; “Around two years ago, I began suffering from acute stomach ache. My husband took me to a private nursing home in Kolkata, where he and the medical staff told me that I would be fine after removing my inflamed appendix through surgery,” she said.

But her pain persisted, or rather intensified, after the operation. “My husband warned me not to disclose the surgery in Kolkata to anyone. I begged him to take me to a doctor to treat the pain, but he ignored me.”

Rita was allegedly taken to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital by relatives from her parents’ side around three months ago and doctors found that her right kidney was missing.

Shocked, she sought a second opinion at a nursing home in Malda and learnt that one of her kidneys was indeed not there.

“I then understood why my husband implored me to keep quiet about the surgery. He sold my kidney because my family couldn’t meet his demand for dowry,” she alleged.

Rita then filed a complaint at Farakka police station in northern Bengal, the native place of her parents, against husband Biswajit Sarkar, a cloth merchant from Lalgola in Murshidabad district, his brother Shyamal and her mother-in-law, Bularani, who is on the run.

The husband and his brother were arrested on Monday, inspector Udayshankar Roy said.

They were charged under Section 19 (punishment for commercial dealings in human organs) and Section 21 (offences by companies involved in any such act) of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act and IPC sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 498 (detaining a married woman with criminal intent).

The men allegedly confessed that the kidney was sold to a businessman in Chhattisgarh. “Murshidabad police will raid the Kolkata hospital where the surgery was conducted,” said a senior police officer who didn’t want to be identified.

Police suspect a kidney smuggling gang is associated with the crime. “A special team has been formed to investigate,” the officer said.